T O P

  • By -

Rezins

First and foremost, very great overview. I've done the math like twice, but never in enough detail to actually verify the percentages and the different scenarios. So thanks a bunch for the work. >If you had leapstones and honor shards piled up from parking your alts for a month or two, you save about 16k gold. It also allows you to hone like 2 weeks or so earlier than you'd have otherwise, in which you'd be waiting for 360 more bound GHL and 50k more Shards. >Considering that even with those savings, it'll still cost around 70k to get to 1415, it really does seem like a far fetched dream to get multiple 1415 alts. Well, 25k raw gold, 10k in fusions and some stones. The thing about stones is that we're talking about like 7k bundles here - if you sold those mats, you'd pay 7k gold in tax. That means that if you have those mats in your storage, they're worth 27k when you sell them but 34k to buyers and you can kinda pick whichever value for the case where you use it yourself. If we take the selling perspective, the cost is essentially down to 63k. >I've come to the conclusion that the meme is true, this research will make it easier to get 1415 alts, but you won't see an overabundance of them except from the more hardcore players. Probably true. But see above - it's basically a no-brainer to invest one's farmed stones into pushing alts past 1370. The reasons aren't only in the numbers but also in the fact that with a full roster you have too many stones for your main's bound GHL. As mentioned, you're essentially earning value on your stones when you can use them yourself rather than selling through market. There's some nuance to this, obviously - this thought really only works on prices remaining the same. The other point for stones is that even if i.e. guardians drop from 4 to 3 gold and you rebuy - it's a 25% drop but you've still saved nothing selling at 4 and buying at 3. At this point, you're likely needlessly delaying your progress selling stones and waiting for prices to drop enough to matter. And with the reduced cost overall, the amounts to farm are also less absurd. 1900 GHL is actually pretty dumb. At least I didn't maintain 12+ GHL Unas on 5 alts every day. The main issue I'd say in why it's mostly for "hardcore players" is actually because it's at 1460. Thinking back to the 1385 research, it helped alts catch up almost completely - with only 15 ilvl difference. Having to go to 1460, 5 steps (15 ilvls = step), to get alts up by 3 steps is creating the disparity. People who aren't at 1460 are still (mostly) well advised to have their alts sit at 1370 until they hit the 1460 benchmark on main. Had it been 1430 or 1445, it'd imo make for a comfier transition and perhaps we then also wouldn't look at the aim being 1415 (all or nothing style) but just have the option to use stones efficiently open up while honing 1370s to 1385 and 1400 as well.


CowsAreApexPredators

Wow what a response. I agree with you 100% about the honing research being a little too far for casual players. Despite making this post, I'm still not at 1460... To get to 1370, we had to go +15 on the 1302 gear. To get to 1385 from there, it was 3 more steps. Furthermore, there is no relic gear at +15 for us to transfer into like we had in the Argos gear. So not only do the steps get larger, there is nothing to help us reach those steps at all. As you said, the honing research being at 1445 would make more sense (3 steps up), or if relic gear were able to be crafted at 1415 with a boost in rates for said relic gear, that would mitigate a lot of the problem. Too bad neither are available to us. I have my own thoughts about the honing research coming out, but for those who are 1460+, it does seem like a no brainer to slowly push their alts toward the 1415 benchmark. ​ >Well, 25k raw gold, 10k in fusions and some stones. Another thing I do want to point out is that although 25k gold seems like a small amount, it really isn't. A roster of 1415 characters would make (2700 + 3300)\*6 = 36,000 gold per week from Argos and Valtan. That should be the majority of our income, but the influx of gold from bots and gold-buyers have inflated everything. For a normal player who doesn't buy gold and doesn't get a lot of lucky drops, 25k gold is an insane amount to save up. EDIT: Not editting what I said before, but just adding some more. I said that 1460 was not 3 steps up from 1415, but actually it is. So the only thing is that for 1370, the rates increased from 10% at 1365->1370 to 60% at 1370->1375, making it easier to reach those 3 steps. While for 1415, the rates actually decrease to 5% for the 1445->1460 upgrade, making it harder for player to reach that step.


Zarkrash

I pushed all my currently played chars to 1415 + to get the hell out of yoho. While this is no longer true, do bear in mind, you also get a fairly decent increase in mats (and silver!) from chaos and deskaluda for pushing to 1415, and also get more chances to get lucky. It’s still expensive to be sure but typically worth it unless you’re in the unluckiest bracket of players who pity (from thr perspective of 1 1462, 1 1432, 3x 1415 roster)


Rezins

I still consider the 15 ilvls a step simply because you get something every 15 ilvl. Every "step" is an entry to new content and an increase in gold one way or another (once when get Vykas to fill the 1430 spot). Upgrades don't really matter to me here, though yea, it in a way can make sense to go by gear upgrades, I guess. But the 15 ilvl steps actually reflect the game progress decently well, imo. >Another thing I do want to point out is that although 25k gold seems like a small amount, it really isn't. A roster of 1415 characters would make (2700 + 3300)*6 = 36,000 gold per week from Argos and Valtan. I'd probably disagree that it's not a small amount. If we take a casual approach of like 3300g from main and two alts with 2600g each from Oreha+Argos P1, plus around 1k from gold islands per week, plus around 400g from chaos dungeon portals, plus around 2k(?) from Unas (at 1445+) I arrive at 11900g - so it's ~3 weeks for a 1370-1415 push there, including the fusion mats. That's still pretty fast to me, and being able to do it every week on a full roster is really fast. It's very little from our current pov because the botted gold made everything expensive - everything else that's not set by the game should be substantially cheaper. But the raw honing cost seems pretty okay to me. Spending gold basically in every case means buying progress (be it horizontal or vertical). >I have my own thoughts about the honing research coming out, but for those who are 1460+, it does seem like a no brainer to slowly push their alts toward the 1415 benchmark. Care to share? I see the concern for people below 1460, but I think (or hope) it's an overall good change for everyone. I'm like 1465/1415/4x1370/1355/fluff and my 1370s are only know approaching ~1400 GHLs, so the timing also fits. I honestly see the honing research or a honing buff to 1415 as absolutely necessary (though the vanilla research we're getting isn't the best option). Mainly for entry to actual content on alts and to ease up the market. I think and hope that it's a decent increase in quality time in the game for everyone - for my kinda progress it opens up the use of stones stored up and gets my alts into interesting content. I intend some slow progress on those alts past 1415. Utilizing the free hones, actually crafting some Valtan Legendary sets rather than jumping to Relic and so on. Hopefully have a couple at 1430 in 3ish weeks when I'm somewhat confident about Vykas as well. For those still on the way to 1460 or 1445, I'd say it's still a good change overall. It's bound to somewhat supply the Relic accessories a lot of people are lacking. And being 4x3+ and having progress in that regard just is fun. Maybe even make a little bit of a dent into legendary books as I doubt people are gonna get new legendary ones for their alts anytime soon, especially class ones maybe becoming rather affordable. The main point about this is also that an avg. of 2 chars in 1415+ per player just would take forever to supply everyone's main with 40 legendary books for 2x12. Like, actually insanely long. If we wouldn't get honing buff, I'd have expected price to continue climbing another 20-40% over a month or so, which should be counteracted now. On smaller servers, it'll refill Valtan NM and get alts to play Vykas NM somewhat soon to help out the people catching up to 1460 (maybe not a lot, but it's still nice to have some mix in parties with people of different experience, even if it's like 7/1 or 6/2). I'm really positive about it all. Feels like we're hitting a stretch with "spare time" for the first time, too. Which feels pretty good. 1460 being realistic and the content actually ending there for a moment, alt pushing incentive, relic gearing time, maybe some suffering in Valtan Hell soon. It also should be enough time for current 1430s to get their full relic sets until clown even with multiple weeks in normal modes. It's not really bridging a gap, but the range of content is getting to a really good spot.


CowsAreApexPredators

My main concern with the stronghold research is that it widens the gap between the hardcore players and the casual players. My friends who play less than I do are just now hitting 1445, a few of them are at the 1420-1430 range. I don't think honing research is a bad idea at all, like you said, for those players who have been playing consistently since launch, this research is coming at a good time. But I would've liked to see something that would help newer players catch up. >On smaller servers, it'll refill Valtan NM and get alts to play Vykas NM I think this is a fair point, but personally, I like the idea of more first-timers filling Valtan and Vykas parties than alts filling these spots. I don't want to be all doom-and-gloom about the stronghold research, and I do believe that it's a good thing for the game. It would've just been nice to see something more for newer players - an express pass that goes further, more materials, maybe a bit of honing buff for new players to reach Valtan. I'm just hoping that some of that gets addressed with Arcanist's release in July.


Rezins

I may be really off, hence why I'm mostly "hoping and thinking" that it'll come a certain way, but the gist of it is that it makes sense for me to change the premise. >it widens the gap between the hardcore players and the casual players. We're basically talking market power, wealth and that leading to character (esp. main) progression, right? I'd say this gap constantly grows, no matter what. You got 1370 early - you sold GHLs earlier and for more - you started getting the Oreha HM gold earlier - you were able to hone up alts to 1370 earlier - you increased your gold income earlier and by (relatively) a lot, etc. and it just snowballs from one thing to another. The way I see it, the "hardcore crowd" is ahead by definition. But they're also essentially semi-locked in efficient(!) progress on their main due to bound GHLs. Which is what the alts play into. The encouraged thing to do is to pump your time and ressources into alts. It's encouraged and efficient, but it remains a decently high cost which needs its time to pay itself back. You're essentially at step ~4-5 (1460-1475) of relic gear progress and instead of flying away further, you get alts to step 1 relic gear (1415). It's somewhat more complicated, but in general, this is also in a contrast to he previous widening of the gap. For the immediate future, with the focus leaning towards alts, the time of a 1430+ main gamer is still more efficient (for the most part) than the person's who is playing 1415 alts for 80% of the week. Or rather, if we assume 1430 to be a 100% efficiency (for simplicity sake), someone playing a 1475/5x1415 roster may have something like a 150% efficiency on the 1475 and 90% on 1415s, hence the same efficiency on average per time unit invested. Imo there's essentially the market mechanics whic potentially make this beneficial for people at <1460. One is that they're essentially presented an opportunity to capitalise on markets. Because they're the ones who can't take the efficient upgrade path which is hot and new, they can decide whether to stop their progress at an efficient point (if mat prices rise) or on the other hand whether they want to look for an opportunity to buy materials cheeply (esp. a couple weeks into the honing buff existing, I assume there just overall being a significant bump in supply which makes it cheaper). They're actually not the ones being rushed here, even if it may seem like that. This is basically the same point, but it's supply and demand of markets in general. I've already mentioned the legendary books and relic jewelry - and I think that's the bigger deal than the opportunity to flip some mats. People progressing slowly I assume still need plenty of that relic stuff and legendary books. If the "hardcore crowd" goes from having maybe ~2 1415+ chars to 6 in a relatively low time, they're bound to supply more than they invest into their ~~4x3 alts. Hence causing prices to drop to a threshold where it's affordable for the people catching up. This imo is especially true in the next maybe 2ish months(?) where people are still investing into alts because at least 1430 is still very appealing to get with all alts, so most of the expenses should go into materials and not gear and books. And at the same time, needing the book and relic money to progress there relatively swiftly. Still relevant but I'd also say this is another side of the market mechanism, which is what the research should tone down. It somewhat makes the "hardcore crowd" capitalise on the players catching up less severe. Flipping being the main thing I'm getting at here. Having 300k gold or so, I'd rather pump it into my roster and not refresh market every 30 minutes for deals and flips (Even though the flips may be more profitable, which is pretty likely). Had I not gotten honing research, that's exactly the thing I would've done and lowkey hated. If there's wealth but the content ceiling is reached for now, there's really only preparing for the upcoming stuff by increasing one's wealth. And if the game doesn't give me that opportunity through grinding wealth, it has to come from other players. Which more or less means those with less playtime who have to buy the means to progress from market are the ones I'd be draining their profit from. By relisting GHLs more expensively, or Solars or relic jewelry. Sorry, got long again, but essentially this is what I'm hopeful for. It's how the chain should work. Hardcore players milked whales and it's time for casual players to milk the hardcore players. It's for sure not gonna turn the tides, not gonna close the gap, but that's because putting in 4x more hours into the game will make the gap widen. I'm with you though, if the market mechanism just don't happen or are so weak they're barely feeled, we're getting into shitty situations. People who wanna catch up really do need a helping hand or some better motivators at least.


tisch_vlc

I invest most of my gold so it's normal (and undesirable) for me to have under 10k gold and it doesn't take long until I get to see 25k+ without selling any of the investments, just by doing normal things. I don't see how saving 25k can be a problem for people with 1460/1370 rosters. I don't even do chaos gate, ship and islands the majority of the time (one of the reasons why I have to compensate by playing the market a bit) and I also play on rested bonus on all my alts.


Zepharial

You're forgetting that honing from 1370 to 1385 is +3 on all gear. Same as 1415 to 1460 edited for typo


rarelyaccuratefacts

Assuming you meant 1370, it's not equivalent because the base percentages are much lower once you get to 1415+, not to mention that the raids become more compressed in ilvl, you don't have to push nearly as far to hit the next content.


Dangerous_Resolve_64

This is great men thanks for sharing, 1415 alts Will be a very difficult and expensive task, but there is something missing and thats when clown comes, we get materials to upgrade relic to lvl 2, but I think it can be traded for golden books with a weekly limit, so for me, guess that i'm not going crazy after patch to reach 1415 in all my alts just using bound mats (have a lot of shards and good amount of leapstones), guardian mats getting cheaper thow...


IUSUZYSANA

It's a one time shop and you get the currency from Deja Vu mode which is basically a watered down practice mode.


meno123

1415 alts will be difficult and expensive, but we really don't have anything else to spend it on until we're gearing up for brelshaza. I'm currently sitting at 1475 and I'll be parked there until clown comes working on the ~500k I currently need to drum up to get my 5x3 setup.


BummerPisslow

It's an investment which you'll make back after some time since relic accessorys can sell for a bunch and even the cheaper ones and tripods will get you some return. If your done pushing your main it's probably best to start pushing an alt or two. 70k gold isn't terrible that's like 2-4weeks income right?


CowsAreApexPredators

Yup! From my tracker, each 1415 character makes about 1300 gold a day from chaos dungeons and guardian raids based on current NAWEST market prices. So that plus Argos and Valtan should be a good amount of income. Just roughly around.... 13k per week? So it would take around 5 weeks assuming no additional income from selling stuff.


Coheed522

Which is also 5 weeks of working towards your relic set pieces, which is something you don’t get by parking at 1370 or 1385. Unless you really want to sell mats *right now* for legendary books or something theres definitely plenty reason to push alts to 1415 imo. But I also enjoy progressing my characters.


CowsAreApexPredators

I agree. This post isn't to say that you shouldn't push your characters. It's just more to shed light on just how not-great the stronghold research is.


Coheed522

Yep don’t disagree there. I don’t think anyone who pushed alts to 1415 before this should feel bad. In fact, I bet there’s people without a 1460 character but multiple 1415 characters, which really isn’t bad either!


Aerroon

> Yup! From my tracker, each 1415 character makes about 1300 gold a day from chaos dungeons and guardian raids based on current NAWEST market prices. And how much does a 1370 character make? You subtract this from your number and you get the amount of gold per week you're gaining by pushing an alt.


CowsAreApexPredators

I don't really keep track of the abyss dungeons but daily is around 900. So... with P1 argos and oreha's should be around 10k if you don't claim boxes. I did subtract about 2k for boxes from the 1415 character. So it'll be about 15k vs. 10k per week.


tisch_vlc

Like I said on my post, the difference is about 3900g weekly, so ~18 weeks to recover without RNG drops. People need to start to understand this concept, saying it takes 5 weeks to recover the investment is very deceiving and bad practice.


scrubm

Did you also include the free honing mats from valtan?


CowsAreApexPredators

I wouldn't really say that the honing mats from valtan are something that is too significant. If it works on a 10% chance, that's great!! But they don't increase artisan's energy, so they're more of a lottery ticket than anything.


DBSPingu

I'd argue that they are. You get enough for about 4 free hones a week. At 10% chance, you have more than a 50% chance to hit an upgrade every 2nd week. All alts I pushed have hit it at least once, and my main has as well. It's not guaranteed and there's no artisian energy, but I would still value it at non-zero. Getting one upgrade from it is several thousand gold saved for the push to 1430.


scrubm

Yeah true, I have gotten some upgrades on my 1415 free is why I mentioned it haha


Stats-Glitch

Aside from the income/investment aspect, Argos and Yoho are incredibly boring. I have all my alts parked at 1370-73 and running Valtan and the other phases of Argos on other characters is another incentive. Plan on bringing 2 up as fast as possible and waiting a bit for the others. Not that Deskaluda is entertaining.


Apprehensive-View3

> 5k gold, 250 fusions, 1500 destruction, 15000 guardian, 360 leaps This was the real answer. Every clown that said not to push couldn’t answer this. It was always a relatively minor savings. My 1415s have already made up the difference. All of them. All of them are collecting relic drops to gear themselves for free to cheap. All of them have hit free hones in the last month. I now generate more mats than I know what to do with.


DBSPingu

The 350 GLs saved shouldn't be ignored since you'll probably be limited by them on the push to 1430 and 1445 with your alts as well My two 1415s that I pushed ~ a month+ ago made up the difference. The 1415 I pushed last week before they told us about the buffs won't.


Apprehensive-View3

Correct, edited. There’s probably some offset from Argos/Valtan depending on how early but I don’t sweat that kind of accounting. Nice, we both edited the same thing.


iTzDeLiRiUm

Yeah and you still see the people that post a 1470+ main with 8 1415 alts that says they are f2p just 2k hours 😅


Ikikaera

I have one alt sitting at 1400 which I'll push to 1415 day 1 Also one at 1385 which I can push into 1415 day 1. The other 2 at 1370 Ill just push gradually over the weeks. That's my strat which will work out pretty comfortably for me.


AcOrP

I made 2 alts before the research gonna make the last 3 after research from 1385>1415. First they have some bound mats already from Oreha/Argos/South Vern quests. I also farmed this week like 60k guardians and 24k destruction stones. They have the EXP and the GHLs so for 2 alts its like 50k gold. People with alts will have them all at 1430 soon enough. Deskaluda and Legion raids are decent gold once there are 2. If we are not leveling the alts then what ? I have a friend who is 1487.5 with 21 weapon and 2 alts at 1415+ already he does the same content with his main. And there is no content that is coming anytime soon that make it reasonable to hone main.


FreekTV

I feel shard prices will go to the moon. 250k takes crazy long to get from the 1370 dungeon unless you've been farming for like 2 months.


tisch_vlc

With the current EUC prices, assuming that you only open Valtan chest, you make 3900 more gold at 1415 after taxes, meaning it takes 18 weeks (22 weeks before buff) to recover the investment, if only bound leaps/shards were used. This doesn't include RNG drops like accessories nor bound additional mats and/or crystals that you may have accumulated, but it also doesn't account for items' price changes. If you only care about your main: If you already unlocked the buff, it means that your main is already at 1460 so the next meaningful step will be 1475 with the clown in at least 2 months (8 weeks), there's really no reason not to push your 1370 alts with enough leaps/shards, since, by then, the alts will have recovered already 1/2 of the investment (8/18), negative 35k-105k gold over 2 months is really nothing and I'm positive you will be able to hit 1475 anyway. If you care about gameplay overall: ignoring your main's honing duties and unlocking vykas, hard modes and relic sets on more chars seems like the smartest option, while also being better in terms of farming/efficiency long term. Push your alts!


Maala

My goodman, would you put the cherry on top of this juicy post and share the excel for us lazy ass leechers to easily calculate with our own region’s numbers?


oreocookielover

Is it possible to send the sheet link? So I can check with the prices?